Dating Loewe Pipes

Dating a Loewe pipe is not a matter of reading a year off a stamp, but of layering several clues to narrow things down to a range. The firm never, at any point, struck a mark that directly gave the production year. What remains are the layout of the shank stamps, whether or not a series name is present, the switch on the underside from a shape name to a three-digit number, and, on silver-banded examples, the assay mark. The brand's general history is covered in the Loewe & Co. entry.

Stamp Layout

The classic arrangement is spread across three surfaces: on the left side, "L&Co." within an oval frame; on the right side, "Loewe London W."; and on the underside, the shape name. On pipes destined for export in particular, a circled "Made in England" mark is also added to the underside. This layout stayed remarkably unchanged for decades, which is precisely what makes dating so difficult.

The distinguishing layer is the second line on the left side. On early pipes, the space beneath the oval logo is blank; the firm had not yet adopted a named quality grade in those years. With the addition of the names Centurion, Original, and Old English, a two-line stamp forms on the left side. Accounts differ on the year these names were introduced: one account gives 1955, while another, based on stamp archives, gives 1956 to 1964. Where the two sources agree is that pipes dated before 1920 carry no series stamp at all. The names Standard, Spigot, and Mounted were added to the list later; a pipe bearing one of these names dates from the later period.

The upper grades fall outside this layout. The Extra Grain, Straight Grain, and Special Grain stamps take the place of the shape name on the underside; below them only the circled origin mark remains. According to one account these three names rank in that order from top to bottom, but because these grades were produced in very small numbers, the ranking has not been confirmed by independent records.

From Shape Name to Number

The most useful break comes from the removal of the shape name on the underside. Loewe long referred to its shapes not by number but by names specific to the English shape catalogue; at some point these were replaced by three-digit numbers beginning with nine. The most classic form, the billiard, for example, carries the number 910. Sources place the year of the transition anywhere between 1960 and 1967, and it is also reported that the two systems ran side by side for a while. Since the numbered system continued through the following period, a pipe bearing a three-digit number is considered late; one bearing a shape name is placed in the earlier period. As with the dating of Comoy's, it is not a single clue but the intersection of clues that yields a result here.

Silver Band and Assay Mark

The most reliable evidence is silver. In the English system, the walking lion indicates sterling standard, the leopard's head the London assay office, and the letter the year the mark was struck; the year letter was a mandatory component until 1999. Because Loewe's spigot mount, which also has its own series name, made silver-banded examples relatively common, this method works better here than it does for many contemporaries. It is reported that in the later period, the workshop that carried out the group's silverwork kept sending bands to the assay office, so even the newest pipes can be dated from the stamp.

Confusing Details

Because the stamp dies stayed the same when ownership changed hands, it is not possible to sort a pipe into periods from the lettering alone. Even the year of the takeover is inconsistent across sources: one account says Civic bought the firm in 1920, while the real break that changed the character of production came around 1964; other records simply say "before 1960." The Cadogan period, when the brand was grouped under the same roof as GBD and Comoy's, is somewhat clearer; the transfer of the trademark into this group is cited as 1979. Pipes from this period bearing the circled origin stamp in the Comoy's pattern is considered a practical way of recognising late examples. The brand also has second-quality names: the two-digit shape-numbered Haymarket is cited for the early period, and the Beefeater stamp for later years. Pipes bearing these stamps are treated not as Loewe proper but as a second-quality line.